Interesting Article about the Clean Power Plan

So I do not know how I stumbled upon this article but I found it very interesting in relation to community power. It talks about the Environmental Protection Agency’s, Clean Power Plan. It stated that, “Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC) called for equity and inclusion for low-income communities of color as states develop and implement CPP-mandate carbon reduction plans”. They want to ensure that every community is apart of this plan and benefits from it. We can tell that most of the time, low income communities have less power and are not able to fight back to have a say in what goes on in their neighborhoods. The EPA stated that it requires states to say how they engaged in the low income communities of color while developing CPP’s in order for states to receive early investment rewards. In the middle of the article is says that communities near power plants, which are usually low income communities like we learned in class, are subject to higher rates of pollution. One main point in the article stated that, ” high rates of pollution-related illness such as cancer, asthma and other respiratory diseases in communities of color to the reality that 68 percent of African-Americans and 40 percent of Latinos live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant and more than half of Asian Pacific Islanders in the United States live in counties with unhealthy air quality”. I think that just shows how bad this problem really is! However, the ending was very positive saying that, “CEIP (Clean Energy Incentive Program) gives vulnerable communities the opportunity to generate wealth by turning property owners and communities into energy producers through community ownership of energy resources, as well as to create clean-energy jobs for local residents”. Hopefully this will actually happen and these communities will get cleaner and better. Not only would it help the environment in which they live in, but it will also help their economy. I do not know a lot of details on any of this but I am going to look into this more! Hope everyone like this, sorry it was so long!